My favorite dream sign is being confused )(. This happens to me a lot during waking life and when it does, I make sure to say out loud āThis is a dream.ā When I forget where I left my glasses or I where I should be stacking the dishes after taking them out of the dishwasher, I will say those words out loud. I get confused in dreams all the time and am attempting to link the feeling of confusion with dreaming, so that when I am confused in a dream I will realize that I am dreaming. Itās worked once, maybe twice since I began this strategy recently, but I know it takes time for any habit to take hold and replace the non-habit.
Another dream sign Iām incubating is ācar.ā I often find myself walking in unknown places because I forgot where I parked my car. So I am trying to associate my car with dreaming and see if that proves fruitful. When I see my car, or think about where I parked it, I vocalize āThis is a dream.ā Obviously, this takes repetition and these are my own personal signs, but if I donāt make it a habit, I will miss the implication in the dream and wake up realizing the clues were all there and I missed them.
I wonder what other people are doing with illusory body practices to be able to recognize their lucid dreams.
Your method of using dream signs to trigger lucidity aligns perfectly with what Iāve read and have come to understand from various teachings.
While this isnāt my area of expertise, Iād like to contribute and share the one dream sign I actively work with. Often in non-lucid dreams, I find myself feeling uneasy and out of place amidst large groups. To turn this into a lucidity trigger, I use an Android app called Awoken which sets off random reminders to do reality checks. These are scheduled from the onset of my workday until a bit after I return home.
These checks sometimes coincide with moments when Iām in a group conversing with contractors or friends from work. During these instances, I perform weird reality checks. Iāll pinch my nose and try to breathe through it while someone is looking at me and talking to me or count my fingers in an exaggerated manner. Occasionally, I do things like mimicing bird wings flapping with my hands as I count them if the conversation is overly serious. Usually they go unquestioned, possibly due to the more serious nature of their profession compared to mine.
There was an instance today when someone inquired about my actions. I jokingly mentioned that I was making sure all my fingers were intact, then added the hospital halls looked strange today. In more formal settings, I adopt subtler methods. These involve memorizing and then recalling the text in my surroundings, after memorizing I inspect each letter carefully upon a second look. These checks are conducted much more seriously due to the serious nature of the āwaking dreamā. During these checks I try to momentarily detach from my environment and all conversations going into a very subtle trance while I examine each letterās outline closely to verify their consistency.
Am i understanding you right?, that your favourite dream sign is when you are having CONFUSION ?
If so, this preference you have confuses meš. Therefore, why is this your favourite dream sign ?
If your favourite dream sign is CONFUSION then it will show up all the time wouldnāt it?
Is this because you are trying to bring awareness into your dream?
As well as will take time to loose the conditioning (dog with a bone)
In my dream interpretation a CAR and all vehicles are very important dream signs because they tell me āthis is what you are being driven byā. And if im walking around in my dream, that too is a very good sign because it means (in my interpretation) āYou are capable of walking the journeyā. And if walking East or to the right, this means āyou are doing it correctlyā. Being anywhere UNKNOWN or NORTH (in dream) Is actually the Awakened State.
And a parked car (my interpretation) isnt such a good sign because it means āyou have parked yourself ā¦ " meaning one needs to move onā (if you want to awaken).
I have developed a very refined dream language so that when im (usually lucid) dreaming, i interpret and translate the dream story directly (inside the dream) and therefore by the time i wake from the dreaming ive understood its message.
Edit: i forgot to mention my interpretation for forgetting means theres something beening neglected.
I remember Charlie Morley once describing an instance when a strange looking guy walked into the room and he did a hand check at the same time they guy, entering the room did the same hand check, thinking the room itself was strange.
When you recognize confusion is your mind And you find the confidence that is without any base
Footnote:These two lines mean that one recognizes that the appearances of outer objects are confused projections of the mind, so they do not exist apart from the mind, just like the appearances of outer objects in a dream. Knowing that, one knows that these confused appearances have no ground; that they do not truly exist outside. This realization is similar to the experience of a lucid dream. (KHENPO TSULTRIP GYAMTSO RINPOCHE)
By acknowledging my everyday confusion, gross as it may be, as being a dream, I hope to carry that over when I am sleeping/dreaming to realize that. No need to settle on a particular object in a dream because confusion itself is so prevalent, so seeing a pink elephant or President Lincoln in a dream is equally confusing and just as likely to trigger lucidity. Seeing things as they are is the goal.
For me itās just another confusion because when Iām in a car, I donāt know where Iām headed anyway. I take any dream I remember as a useful dream and try to honor it in the daytime. I see the daytime life as an instantiation of the nocturnal and vice versa. As things come together (and fall apart) in the daytime, so do they at night.
I do something similar with my feelings from dreams and have worked out ways to incubate dreams (illusory body practice) which include the aforementioned recognizing confusion as a dream and trying to increase recognition to foster liberation as advised in the Tibetan Book of the Dead
Early on I got in the habit of reminding myself that this is a dream, or to do a reality check, whenever I see it hear an airplane. I live in a major metro area with several airports so there are plenty of planes throughout the day. The thought āthis is a dreamā or āam I dreamingā has become completely reflexive at this point when I see it hear a plane. But I never dream about planesā¦ Lolā¦ so that one hasnāt actually helped much.
What characterizes most of my dreams is being in places Iāve never been before and talking to people Iāve never met before. It is extremely rare I dream about a real-life place Iām familiar with, and most dream characters are new-to-me as well. So now Iām trying to prompt myself to recall this is a dream when I am in a new place or environment, and when I meet new people. That is much, much harder though.
How often do you go to a new place or meet new people? Perhaps at the supermarket checkout counter or going to a different gas station? Just a thought.
I am in public places where I see people I donāt know on a daily basis. I go to places Iāve literally never been before less frequently, but still often enough.
(. This happens to me a lot during waking life and when it does, I make sure to say out loud āThis is a dream.ā When I forget where I left my glasses or I where I should be stacking the dishes after taking them out of the dishwasher, I will say those words out loud. I get confused in dreams all the time and am attempting to link the feeling of confusion with dreaming, so that when I am confused in a dream I will realize that I am dreaming. Itās worked once, maybe twice since I began this strategy recently, but I know it takes time for any habit to take hold and replace the non-habit.
